Chapter 9: Mission

//2 days later//

Sasuke waited for 2 days and is now done with his observation. He has etched in his memory the movements, behavior, habits and everything about the coachman of the carriage that the young daimyo will be riding using his sharingan.

Although he could just manipulate the coachman, it would be troublesome once they got to the Land of Lightning. The disturbance in the chakra caused by the genjutsu will surely get noticed by the barrier.

Even if he controls the guards in the checkpoint, the information will still be automatically registered and get to the operators of the barrier, alerting all the ninjas posted in the vicinity. It's a defense mechanism to avoid spies from getting in who are adept at using genjutsu.

So it's better for him to just transform as the person and use [chakra disguise jutsu] to copy the signature of the coachman. It's another A-rank technique on his arsenal and when coupled with his sharingan, he could copy every bit of details of his target's chakra.

And since his target hasn't been in the Land of Lightning before, his chakra signature is not registered yet so it's almost impossible to differentiate from the original unless you have a high level sensory technique such as [mind's eye], [sage mode] or dojutsu that can uncover his disguise.

When the night time came, Sasuke then made his move.

((Takahashi PoV))

Today is my daughter's 5th birthday. I have been away from home for almost a week now because the daimyo has been quite busy these past few days in preparation for our journey to Kumo.

'I wonder how my wife and daughter are doing.'

As I kept walking I noticed the droplets of water hitting my shoulder at an increasing rate, it's going to rain.

My daughter's probably asleep by now, dreaming about how I'm not present on her birthday. It saddens me but I can't really do anything about it. My job is very important to feed my family. I will just have to apologize and make up with her, I'm sure she will understand.

As I got nearer to my house, the rain finally poured down completely. My house is now only 5 blocks away from me but I can't risk getting sick as I still have to accompany the daimyo tomorrow morning. So, I stopped and took shelter in the alleyway.

The clouds are not that thick so the rain will probably last for only a couple of minutes. I then pulled the small box I hid under my shirt to prevent it from getting wet. I checked if it's still fine and it does.

It's a gift I bought on my way home earlier, a dress and a doll. Although it's not expensive, I'm sure my love will get to my daughter. Just imagining her reaction warms my heart.

After 5 minutes the rain finally stopped. As I took a step forward, two red dots shone in the dark alley and disappeared right after. I thought I was just seeing things because of sleepiness and tiredness so I just ignored it.

As I continued walking I began feeling very ominous. Usually, such a thing would just get washed at the back of my head but it is really creeping on me as time passes by. Not only those weird blood-like dots earlier but the sound of silence and smell of wet ground is making my stomach twist.

'There's something wrong here.' I thought to myself and began running to my house.

My heart beats faster and faster even though everything seems to be fine, there's no disturbance in the surrounding whatsoever. But as I got closer to my destination, a metallic scent entered my nose. It's normal in this area to smell something like that since one of the main occupations here is blacksmithing and I am one myself, yet, I find the smell irritating for some reason.

Finally, I arrived at my house. I immediately opened the door and announced my arrival. "Honey, I'm home."

The response I was expecting didn't come. My wife is usually still awake at this hour waiting for me. I checked the kitchen and there's no one, the restroom and there's no one, the dining room and there's no one. I cannot find her on the first floor. The only room left is the bedroom where all of us sleep.

And so I hurriedly ran upstairs.

*Doom!* Because of the adrenaline rush I wasn't able to control my strength, causing a loud noise upon opening the door.

What greeted me was a horrifying scene.

A mask man is sitting on the edge of our bed with his chin resting on the hilt of the bloodied sword he was holding upside down with both hands. My eyes traced down the blade of the sword shakingly. What I saw at the end was my wife lying lifelessly on the ground and my daughter on top of her, with both of their stomachs pierced by the damn blade, mockingly like a skewer.

Like my soul was taken away from me, all the strength left my body, falling on both knees. I do not know what to do, I am no ninja nor have the ability to take the life of the man in front of me. All I could do was choke by my own breath as I gasped for air.

((3rd PoV))

Sasuke successfully put the man under his sharingan genjutsu. Ever since the man made eye contact with him, everything that happens afterwards is just an illusion. But unlike tsukuyomi which can control the time, his genjutsu lasted for ten minutes before the man finally dropped dead because of a heart attack caused by the extreme shock. Leaving no trace of blood, injury, whatsoever.

Killing the man was only possible because for one, he is not a ninja so he can't release the genjutsu and second, he is weak hearted. Sasuke thought that since he is going to kill the man either way, why not just use him as a guinea pig to see how powerful his eyes are. The next step is to test it to an actual ninja now that he has first hand experience.

In all of his missions, he hasn't tried it before because he doesn't have that much control over his new evolved eyes and he can't afford to show all of his cards when someone is accompanying him. A genjutsu that can induce death upon the target without physical harm is unheard of after all. But if he is able to master such a technique without mangekyo, he will be unstoppable in the next 5 years.

Sasuke knows just how powerful sharingan genjutsu was in the early episodes of the series. It was shown by his counterpart who was able to reverse Orochimaru's [living corpse reincarnation] against him and enter Naruto's mindscape who is a jinjuriki, as well as Itachi who was able to put Naruto under genjutsu for a short amount of time. These two did it using only 3 tomoes.

Sasuke walked to the man and placed two fingers on his neck to check if he's actually dead. After confirming it, he took the man's clothes, shoes, ID and everything. He's not about to waste chakra if he can just steal the man's belongings. With that done, he transformed and wore everything. He then pulled out a scroll from his holster, uncurled it on the ground and sealed the dead body.

He was about to leave the scene when he noticed a wet small box laying on the puddle of water. Being a good man he is, he picked it up, delivered it to the man's house, left it at the front door, then flickered out.

…

//Next morning//

As planned, the daimyo and his elite guards who are all jonin level believed Sasuke's disguise. He acted his part as the coachman and they proceeded to their destination.

Land of Frost is a fairly peaceful country so they were able to get to the Land of Lightning without any problem.

After getting inspected at the checkpoint, they entered the land.

While controlling the horse skillfully, the disguised Sasuke turned on his back and knocked on the small window of the carriage behind him. *Tok tok tok*

The window slid open, revealing the figure of the young daimyo. "What is it?" He said with groggy eyes.

"Sorry for waking you up, Daimyo-sama. But we've arrived in the Land of Lightning. It will be 6 hours till we get to Kumo." Sasuke said respectfully.

"Then don't stop till we get there." The young daimyo said annoyingly.

He was about to close the door when a pair of red eyes made eye contact with him. "On second thought, let's take a rest."

Hearing his new order, Sasuke halted the carriage and got off his mount.

"Hey, why did we stop?" One of the jonin guards asked. Their plan was to get to Kumo as soon as possible yet their coachman suddenly stopped without any warning.

But just like the kid, he turned into Sasuke's puppet followed by the other 3.

"Daimyo-sama requested to find a place where we can rest." Sasuke said and the man he was talking to complied without any more questions.

–Inn–

As per order, the young daimyo rented a room. After putting every person in the inn under genjutsu, Sasuke doesn't have to worry about intrusions so he can begin his actual mission without any hitch.

Right now, the disguised Sasuke, the young daimyo and the four ninja are eating like they would normally do to replenish their energy. All of them are still under Sasuke's control.

While they were taking their full, a ninja suddenly broke in the window. Based on his chakra he is a jonin level at the very least and his headband tells them that he is from Kumo.

The guards were alerted. Two of them immediately surrounded and protected the young daimyo while the other two attacked the intruder. The 3 of them engaged in combat, showing why they were considered elites.

Although he is able to fend off his two opponents at the same time with sheer speed, the Kumo ninja soon realized that he's at a disadvantage. Clicking his teeth, he decided to retreat.

After deflecting the attacks of his opponents, the Kumo ninja was about to use [body flicker] to get away when another individual stormed in, turning the wall of the inn into a pile of rubles.

He has slicked blonde hair, thick eyebrows, mustache and goatee. He has dark skin that reflects his skin of steel and an intimidating huge build honed in the battlefield.